Like spiders, snakes, insects, lizards, rodents, things like that. They don't bother or scare me at all. And I honestly find it disturbing how many people I know that would rather just kill them than let them go about their lives.

I don't own any as pets, though I wouldn't mind having a California King Snake one day, and I'm not really into holding spiders and stuff, but I don't go around killing them all the time. I leave them alone for the most part. The only time I kill anything is a cock roach if it's in my house but mostly just the german red cock roaches because they actually carry diseases. But I almost never see them, just the big ones from outside that will get in after a big rain. Then they leave again. I grew up out in the woods with snakes and spiders and rodents so maybe I just got used to them.

I've been known to catch-and-release bees and hornets (I use a cup and a postcard). I also toss earthworms into the grass after it rains. I've held a praying mantis in my bare hands before (it had gotten into the stairwell for the campus computer lab). Web-spinners get left alone, but hunters get cup-and-carded outside. Ants, flies, and roaches get the boot. The big heavy one.

I save anything that will let me save it, people think I'm so weird for that, good to know I'm not the only one.

Flies get killed though yeah, they're annoying, they populate like mad, and you can open a door or window and try to herd them out but they will not leave, they just want to buzz around your freaking face. but i don't hate them because they're creepy, just annoying

I went to a 'women's college', so there was also the benefit of seeing faces of fellow students as I walked out of the door holding this big-ass bug! in my hands. (Hey, we didn't have frat boys. Something had to fill the void.)

Oh! And caterpillars - I haven't outgrown the fascination of watching them grow and pupate. I do try to keep those rescues along the 'less destructive' species (Monarchs get helped, Gypsy moths can go it alone.)

I try not to hurt the creepy crawlies when I can avoid it. Case in point, if I find a moth or something in my living room, I'll try my best to catch it so I can bring it back outside. Also, when I'm at the pool and see that a bug of some kind has fallen into the water, I try to save it from drowning.

The only exception to my no-squish rule is when I find a spider or mosquito inside my apartment, and that's only because I don't want to get bitten.

I try to leave the creepy crawlies alone. The only time I go into kill mode is when the extra large piss ants invade my bed room. Or if I find a black widow inside the house. Outside I leave them all alone. I once had a black widow as a pet for nearly two years. I have had scorpions, snakes, rats, mice, lizards and dragonfly pupae for pets...though there wasn't much petting involved, more just feeding and cleaning the cages and aquariums.

I had a black widow that lived in a hole in the brick mortar outside my apartment door for years, she'd make a web every night and I'd just sit outside and chill and watch her. I also made sure all the neighborhood kids stayed the hell away from her. She died but a different widow took over, i like to think it was her daughter.

I remember one time as a child saving a praying mantis from a group of kids on the play ground who were planning on pulling it's legs off.

So I've kind of always been like this. I just don't like the thought of things suffering, so even when i do kill something, i try to make it quick. I know that most insects are biologically so simple they don't really feel pain like we do, but i still don't like it.

And Oni - i love caterpillars too lol I want to raise some but don't have the time or means for a butterfly house right now. I do mount butterflies though, I have a small collection going from dried specimens I've bought. I don't have the heart to catch and kill butterflies myself to mount. It involves paralyzing them by pinching their thorax and putting them in a jar with cotton balls soaked in alcohol so that they suffocate to death. You have to paralyze them so that they don't don't damage their wings as they thrash about in their death throws ;-; i couldn't do that. at least by buying dried specimens I'm supporting butterfly farms, which releasing 25% of the butterflies they raise back into the wild to help keep population levels healthy.

I use the tried and true method of 'quart jar with Saran wrap'. (At one point I even used a gallon jar for making sun-tea. That was for a Polyphemus caterpillar - it was huge!) You can hold the wrap in place with one of those canning lids that has the bit in the middle that comes loose, or a rubber band; punch a bunch of holes in it for ventilation, and put in twigs and leaves from the area you found the caterpillar. When they finish pupating, open the jar and set it outside.

>_> I planted myself a butterfly bush, and have all manner of visitors each year. One year I even managed to see one of these Hummingbird Moths (a few seconds into the video). It freaked me out, wondering what it was.

My dad has a butterfly bush lol it's super popular! All dem butterflies :3 Be careful though they get HUGE his is as big as a tree now, he had to move it from beside the house to the corner of his yard. I love his garden, I used to go out and photograph all the insects and humming birds that would turn up out there

At work, at night we have loads of insects everywhere because it's right by a marsh (which i love working by, i see so much wildlife) and my job entails taking a lot of paper work from people through a window in my little shack outside the main building. So many bugs x.x they kind of get on my nerves but just because they fly right into my face when I open the window. But I almost never kill them and I'm not running around freaking out because they're flying around. People find that so strange for some reason. I guess because I'm a girl, it's pretty interesting to see some of these full grown men start flipping their shit because i a little moth flew in their face

Oh my. Reminds me of the time I transferred my black widow from one jar to another. Hubby said he could do it. Five minutes later I went outside to find him, my son and my brother prodding the jar with a five foot stick like the spider was going to leap out at them. I managed to move her in about 30 seconds, with a bit of twig.

PS We trim the butterfly bush every year, but you're right, they do get big.

Fuck creepy crawlies. You invade my homestead and you forfeit your existence. End of story.

I killed an earwig the other day (fucking HATE those because they don't drown easily) and whatever cockroaches are in the kitchen I always spray, squash or flush. I hate spiders too, have gotten bit one too many times (the bite spot swells up to the size of a golfball and itches like a motherfucker) and their legs crawling on me tickle so it feels horribly creepy since I don't know if I can brush them off without getting bitten.

Furthermore, if you just leave them be they tend to multiply, possibly in some place you'd prefer not to (cockroaches are very good at that) so you invite that on yourself by being merciful. Let's also not forget the ones who crawl into your ear while you sleep and lay eggs in your brain. They could be doing harm to you without you knowing til its too late. They are NOT your friends and don't deserve a live and let live policy because they can't be trusted to honor it.

Reptilian things, I've just seen to many killer snake movies and the like to ever trust not to get bitten without a guarantee in writing from a trainer or something.

I live in the middle of nowhere, so all the creepy crawlies get huge here. I tend to relocate them unless they're a pest insect (cockroaches for example are crush on sight) or if they're dangerous to humans (widows, recluse, etc).

About a year after moving here, my aunt's telling me we have tarantula and having never seen one I'm all "yeah right." About a week later I wake up in the middle of the night...WITH A TARANTULA SITTING ON MY CHEST! My sheets almost needed changed. >_>;

Fuck creepy crawlies. You invade my homestead and you forfeit your existence. End of story.

I killed an earwig the other day (fucking HATE those because they don't drown easily) and whatever cockroaches are in the kitchen I always spray, squash or flush. I hate spiders too, have gotten bit one too many times (the bite spot swells up to the size of a golfball and itches like a motherfucker) and their legs crawling on me tickle so it feels horribly creepy since I don't know if I can brush them off without getting bitten.

Furthermore, if you just leave them be they tend to multiply, possibly in some place you'd prefer not to (cockroaches are very good at that) so you invite that on yourself by being merciful. Let's also not forget the ones who crawl into your ear while you sleep and lay eggs in your brain. They could be doing harm to you without you knowing til its too late. They are NOT your friends and don't deserve a live and let live policy because they can't be trusted to honor it.

Reptilian things, I've just seen to many killer snake movies and the like to ever trust not to get bitten without a guarantee in writing from a trainer or something.

Wow lol paranoid much? I hope it doesn't take a couple of urban legends and scary movies to make you that scared of everything, you wouldn't be able to leave your house!

and fyi, technically we're the invaders here since insects have been around since before mammals even existed

I live in the middle of nowhere, so all the creepy crawlies get huge here. I tend to relocate them unless they're a pest insect (cockroaches for example are crush on sight) or if they're dangerous to humans (widows, recluse, etc).

About a year after moving here, my aunt's telling me we have tarantula and having never seen one I'm all "yeah right." About a week later I wake up in the middle of the night...WITH A TARANTULA SITTING ON MY CHEST! My sheets almost needed changed. >_>;

Ohhhh yeah no way! lol I don't mind seeing spiders around and stuff, but touching me? no thanks!

I once went camping and got up in the middle of the night to take care of business, came back and noticed something dark on my pillow, grabbed a flash light to take a look and it was a scorpion about the size of my hand lol needless to say I didn't sleep very well that night, I kept feeling like things were touching me, I wouldn't even get back in my sleeping bag!

I have come a long way from the arachnophobe I was as a teen. A harmless little spider would send me leaping to the counter screaming for my dad to "COME KILL IT, NOW!!!!".

The black widow I kept as a pet was a form of self therapy to help overcome that irrational fear. Yes, I have been bitten by one so I know exactly what they can do. I also remember my mother panicking when she found me trying to play with some when I was about three years old. (Probably the origin of the irrational fear.) I was eight before I poked my first rattlesnake with a stick. >.< Haven't been bitten by one of those, but I did soon learn to avoid any snake with a triangular shaped head. They are the poisonous ones. It is good to know how to recognize your enemy.

The spiders I 'do' allow to remain in my home are actually far more venomous than black widows, but their stingers aren't tough enough to break human skin. They remain in the corners as my alarm system since they will not co inhabit with a black widow. Their webs sound and feel different to the touch. A black widow web literally crackles when the strands are broken. The other -more deadly spiders? are your ordinary daddy long legs. Not too creepy while they destroy flies and ward off the black death biters.

On to tarantulas. I still can't bring myself to hold one, but my brother was fascinated by them. He used to go out and hunt for them come mating season when they would be out in droves. Only the females are dangerously poisonous, however you almost never see those because they stay in their underground nest waiting for the visiting males to bring on the party. The females are red, compared to the brown males (at least the California version are.) As for the male bite/sting, according to my brother it is much along the lines of a bee sting as far as pain goes.

Creepy crawly lesson over for today.

All that said, I still shriek if a spider runs across my chest and dives under my laptop.

The spiders I 'do' allow to remain in my home are actually far more venomous than black widows, but their stingers aren't tough enough to break human skin. They remain in the corners as my alarm system since they will not co inhabit with a black widow. Their webs sound and feel different to the touch. A black widow web literally crackles when the strands are broken. The other -more deadly spiders? are your ordinary daddy long legs. Not too creepy while they destroy flies and ward off the black death biters.

Cool. Though I am still convinced that they keep each other at bay. I have been living amongst them both for 40+ years and have never seen them in the same area. For some now unknown reason they avoid each other.

Spiders are normally very solitary critters, with bigger ones having no problem with eating smaller ones (even among the same species - there's a reason for the 'widow' name) If I were a relatively tiny black widow, I'd be staying away from the bigger Pholcidae species, too.